


Psychology of Us

by Righ (Venenum)



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, im a messy writer no regrets, nothing necessarily in order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:19:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venenum/pseuds/Righ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles of a RP Psychiatrist AU, inspired by and for Justine. <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Psychology of Us

He wakes up to a warm olive-skinned chest and his nose buried in a neck sporting dark stubble, smiling to find Pitch is still fast asleep. Jack doesn't move on such occasions and stays as still as humanly possible, staring at the dust motes dancing by the uncurtained window in his shabby bedroom. Manhattan careens into life far below, but up here it is just a hum of another world. When his lover stirs, he buries his cold nose in a cosy neck and is treated to being sleepily pulled in so he can leech off that constant body-heat instead of pushed away for being too chilly. 

Pitch grumbles when he feels icy feet sliding up his calves, but he only huffs a little after that. The only time Jack prefers to be too hot rather than too cold is in his arms, and he knows it.

 

 

There's nothing but cereal and toast for breakfast at Jack's apartment and, after learning what the other man prefers for his first meal of the day, he places a bet with himself on how long it will take for Pitch's manners to crack. As it turns out, it's the third time Pitch stays over.

"Chocolate milk isn't a viable option, Jack. You'll get scurvy at this rate."

"Where are you going?"

Pitch pulls on his expensive wool coat, arching a thin, critical brow. 

"To buy bagels and fruit," he announces in no uncertain terms, sweeping out and leaving Jack smiling where he watches YouTube on the laptop. Pitch took Jack's scarf. When he returns, it smells like fresh bread, day old cologne and one very pleased psychiatrist.

They eat together and then off each other and then it's noon and the whole debacle starts all over again.

 

 

"Jack. Jack, come here, it's alright. I've got you," hushes Pitch in the dead of night, cradling the violently trembling nineteen-year-old like both of them might shatter. "I've got you, it was just a nightmare."

Jack hates the pond. The trauma of drowning, being yanked out by his uncle and North's harsh panic after he brought him back to life, the screaming of his little sister nearby, it's all so freshly embedded. The dreams are worse than the reality, though. 

"The moon," he chokes out, pushing up into Pitch's neck as he scrabbles to put his back to the window's glow. "The _moon_ said ..."

"Shh, shh." 

"I'm sorry," the boy sobs, throat like wet paper. He can't stop clinging. "W-Woke you up."

"Never mind that." Pitch's voice is velvet-low and his chin rests in hair due another hasty revisit from dye. "I have you, Jackson. They're only nightmares, mm? Focus on me."

Jack does. He crawls into Pitch's lap and falls asleep kissing him, sinking into the oblivion of dreamless sleep that he can only find when the older man is there.

 

 

Ice skating is freeing. The rink is huge and mostly empty, even by Monday morning standards, while Pitch leans over the edge ("I'd only fall over, you go ahead,") to watch Jack take to his skates like a duck to water. After convincing Pitch that Jack wouldn't have a traumatic break-down ("We're not going swimming, jeez!") it has been relatively easy to get him to come along. Partly, Jack thinks, out of professional fascination and also to keep a wary eye on him. He cares so much and Jack doesn't call him out on it.

"You were wonderful out there," Pitch tells him as he swerves over, ice and cold air swirling around Jack like confetti. Their kiss tastes of bitter coffee and recent whoops of excitement, firm and happy. "And there is no way you are getting me out on that rink."

When Jack pretends to take a fall, Pitch bangs open the barricade gate and sweeps over on practiced but mechanical skates. He looks so angry when Jack laughs that he needs several minutes of making out on the ice to swear his revenge.

 

 

Pitch says he looks adorable, and Jack glowers.

"It's just for the week until they go back home," he says tightly, ruffling his chestnut hair, "Mom doesn't like the white dye." Any reluctance to meet Pitch's gaze without his usual blue contacts (a barrier, confidence booster and outright _need_ because his reflection looked wrong, so very inexplicably _wrong_ after that December accident) goes out the window as long elegant fingers tilt up his chin.

"You are," purrs Pitch, effectively proving a distraction as he pulls Jack onto his lap in the mahogany study, "a constant source of surprise."

"Taking that as a compliment."

Carding through choppy locks, the grip in his hair tightens and Jack sinks his nails into a pair of Oxford-shirted shoulders, leaning in for a slow, comforting kiss that quickly becomes long and arousing. Pitch nips Jack's lower lip, unable to keep from staring into the big brown eyes darkening with lust.

"You should. Now, while you look less than severely irritating, be a good boy and put that sweet mouth to better work."

Jack makes a mental note that week how much Pitch loves a genuinely submissive fuck.

 

 

"He's lucky I didn't call the police!"

"Sit still, I can't wash off the worst if you're moving around."

"I can't believe you're defending that _beast_."

The line of Jack's lips flattens and thins. He snaps, "Maybe if you didn't throw the fact we're _fucking_ in Bunny's face, in his own _shop_ , he wouldn't have taken a swing at you. God damn it, it's like you want to kill each other. Now will you sit the _fuck_ still, please? I'm actually sort of concerned here."

Grousing, Pitch does as he's told. Silence stretches on for a couple of minutes as Jack gently cleans the cut on Pitch's forehead where he had fallen against a tabletop inside the Egghunt. He's privately dreading going to work the next day, especially with Aster fired up about just who it is he's dating.

"I don't think you'll need stitches, it's mostly just blood," Jack murmurs, eyeing the wound with a sigh. His hand cups Pitch's cheek, blue eyes meeting amber. "You're such an idiot."

"You were worth it."

 

 

When Pitch explains what happened to Seraphina — the car accident, how it had all but been entirely his fault, his _weakness_ — and Jack is shown the locket holding her image, his heart breaks for him. Not trusting his words, he walks over to the winged armchair and slides his hands over Pitch's shoulders, runs them up into thick hair, back down a neck. Bending down as Pitch strains up, they kiss with a chasteness that steals his breath away and Jack envelopes him into a hug that makes no move to let him escape for a while, a forehead pressing against his chest and arms right around his waist.

As his lips brush the thin scar near a hair-line he feels rather than hears the hollow, lost noise Pitch makes. Lets it travel all the way through, then decides without ceremony to be its home.

 

 

When Jack gets out of hospital, he doesn't care for a possible concussion or that he hasn't eaten in a day and a half. The sight of his old brown bicycle bent in two against the wall of his bedroom reduces him to tears, crying hard and ugly on his knees as Pitch blanches and can only pick up the pieces of a broken soul.

"Dad gave it to me before he died," Jack tells him later, curled up across Pitch's lap on the too-small sofa, a cup of chai in-hand. He doesn't move, exhausted and miserable. "I can't remember being without it, it's like a part of me."

Pitch doesn't buy him a new one. He has the out-dated original repaired, at great cost to himself, and he obviously doesn't expect Jack to burst into tears yet again when presented with it three days later. This time, however, laughter rings joyously through the sobs.


End file.
